Chapter Structure and Campaigns

Committees

Metro DC DSA has five standing committees. Committees are intended to oversee the chapter’s health and function, and to facilitate our other structures — working groups and caucuses — to do the work they’re passionate about. Read the formal description of each committee in our Chapter Bylaws.

If you would like to submit an item for a future Steering Committee agenda, please create a Red Desk ticket and select help topic: “Steering Meeting Agenda Item.” Steering Committee minutes are posted to our Minutes and Historicals page as they are completed.

Administrative Committee

Zach E. (Co-Chair), Brian W. (Co-Chair)

Email: admin@mdcdsa.org

Committee discussion takes place on a private channel that can be joined by invitation if you would like to help with AdCom work. If you have administrative questions or need assistance, let us know in #helpdesk.

Endorsements Committee

Caleb-Michael F. (Co-Chair), vacant (Co-Chair)

Email: endorsements@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #endorsement-committee

Charged with all communications and processing of political candidates who seek the Chapter’s endorsement. An administrative body that remains neutral on ideological motivation of candidates and conducts the administrative tasks of processing all endorsement applications, regardless of political party or office sought.

Finance Committee

Brian W. (Chair)

Email: finance@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #finance

We’re actively looking to build out this committee! If you have experience or interest in budgeting, financial organization or reporting, fundraising, compliance, bookkeeping, or regular old spreadsheeting, please get in touch!

Compliance Subcommittee

Responsible for providing the necessary legal and financial oversight our electoral work requires for the chapter to stay in compliance with DC, Maryland, and Virginia campaign finance codes across election cycles.

Internal Organizing Committee

Brandon H. (Co-Chair), Luke R. (Co-Chair)

Email: ioc@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #ioc

Working Groups

Working Groups are formed whenever five dues-paying members come together around a shared vision of work. They may be issue or campaign-based, and may be affiliated with one of the five standing committees above or may operate independently as they deem useful.

App Driver Labor

Email: driveuniteddc@gmail.com

Slack: #driver-labor-wg

Website: driveunited.org

Twitter: @DriveUnitedDC

The App Driver Labor Working Group was established to empower those in the Washington, DC-area who try to make a living through rideshare apps.

Comp Plan

Email: compplan@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #comp-plan

Members of the Ecosocialist Caucus work with the DC Grassroots Planning Coalition, which is made up of community groups, Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, and civic associations working toward equitable development and affordable housing in the District. This group meets monthly on the 2nd Saturday of every month. Find out about meetings by following the DC Grassroots Planning Coalition on Facebook and signing up for emails from the convening organization for the Coalition, Empower DC.

Disability Justice

Email: disability-justice@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #disability-justice

Twitter: @djwg_mdcdsa

As Democratic Socialists, we know that solidarity between disabled and non-disabled comrades lies at the intersection of disability rights and anti-capitalist action. Under capitalism, disabled individuals are subject to labor exploitation yet are simultaneously seen as inefficient and unfit to perform labor. This type of modern ableism drives a wedge between communities, segregating “productive” workers from those deemed “less able” — code for “less deserving” of dignity and justice. Ableism also serves the interests of political and economic elites by conditioning our society to see forms of social and economic stratification as being somehow natural and justified. We reject this notion and believe that inclusivity is not something to be debated. In fact, the experiences of disabled folk reflect the central contradictions of capitalism. Activism that does not consider the challenges facing the disabled community may perpetuate ableism, regardless of legal and societal reform.

The Metro DC DSA Disability Justice Working Group is dedicated to the empowerment and liberation of the DMV disabled community through non-hierarchical, issue-based campaigns designed by, in consultation with, and for disabled comrades. We aim to promote a democratic socialist platform in areas of health, education, infrastructure, housing, employment, and political representation. We also invite non-disabled comrades to act in solidarity and become an integral part of this Working Group. Our group works to expand accessibility and combat ableism within chapter organizing spaces. Moreover, we engage in internal and external political education surrounding the disabled community and its relationship to capitalism and other systems of oppression through our upcoming workshops, discussion/reading groups, and panels.

(Read the full mission statement.)

DSA 4 Bernie

Email: DSA4Bernie@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #bernie

DSA for Bernie is organizing to advancing the core demands of Sanders’s platform — not merely the candidate himself — such as Medicare for All, College for All, Green New Deal, ending cash bail, $15 minimum wage and more. DSA for Bernie is working to build a broad campaign of working people and progressives in the DMV to organize behind the Sanders campaign and its democratic socialist agenda.

Internationalism

Email: internationalism@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #internationalism

Facebook: MDC DSA Internationalism

Twitter: @Intl_Solidarity

The Internationalism Working Group’s mission is to ensure that democratic socialist organizing and policy in the greater Washington, DC area and the United States at large includes a commitment to internationalism, which we view as a tenet of democratic socialism. This includes but is not limited to anti-imperialism, anti-militarism, anti-war, and anti-capitalism. We hold these values in pursuit of world peace and international cooperation. (Read the full mission statement.)

Labor

Email: labor@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #labor

The Labor Working Group organizes with workers across the District to fight bad bosses, build new unions, and turn out for solidarity actions. Are you upset with changes management is making at your job? Do you think you have had wages or paid sick leave stolen from you? Maybe you’ve spoken about organizing a union with your co-workers, and those conversations went great, but you don’t know what to do next. If any of that applies to you, the LWG strongly encourages you to e-mail us at labor@mdcdsa.org. An LWG organizer will promptly respond. All communications are confidential.Membership in the LWG is open to everyone, especially workers who are members of unions or worker organizations, or who want to organize their workplace.

Migrant Justice

Email: migrantjustice@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #migrantjustice

The Migrant Justice Working Group focuses on challenging the apparatus of private contractors that make up the deportation machine. Anyone interested in researching and protesting profiteers to advocate for an end to deportation can join us!

Mutual Aid

Email: mutualaid@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #mutual-aid

The Mutual Aid Working Group aims to allow comrades to provide essential resources and services to working class and marginalized communities in the District of Columbia on the basis of non-hierarchy, voluntary association, and solidarity. We show this goodwill based on the belief that mutual aid serves as a viable alternative to the profit-seeking, exploitative nature of capitalism. In addition to providing resources and services, we will conduct political education on the ways that mutual aid can assist in the Democratic Socialist struggle to upend the rapaciousness of capitalism. (Read the full mission statement.)

Political Education

Email: politicaleducation@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #political-education

Political education is central to the struggle against capitalism and to build socialism. It helps us better understand our own world and how to fight for a better one. This work is rooted in political struggle and supports it as well. The main work of the Political Education Working Group is to organize our Socialist Night School, a series of twice-monthly sessions that explore basic ideas, concepts and historical events related to socialism. The working group also organizes reading groups and other events, and works with other working groups to support their own political education work. Some other working groups do political education work independently.

Publications

Email: thesocialist@mdcdsa.org for questions and submissions

Slack: #publications for discussion, content review, and editing

The MDC DSA Publications Working Group produces our chapter’s weekly email updates and monthly Washington Socialist newsletter. The group also works to refresh our website content, print handouts for outreach and tabling, creates zines, and provide graphic design support for the chapter. The Pubs group is overseen by a five-member Publications Editorial Board, which was enabled by a bylaws amendment passed in the 2018 local chapter convention. Join us to spread the good word of socialism!

Red Cubs Child Care

Email: childcare@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #child-care-red-cubs

Red Cubs was established to provide child care at general body meetings with the explicit goal of elevating the voices of women and low-income families in our chapter. We are actively looking to build out this working group to expand child care to all DSA meetings.

Rent Control Working Group

Email: rentcontrol@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #dc-rentcontrol

With current rent control laws in Washington, D.C., set to expire on December 31, 2020, we face a unique opportunity to pressure the D.C. Council to strengthen and significantly expand these protections. The MDC DSA Rent Control Working Group formed as part of a citywide coalition comprising tenants, legal advocates, labor unions, and community organizations that aims to (1) expand rent control to cover thousands of additional buildings in the district; (2) close legal loopholes that allow landlords and developers to profit from gross neglect and evictions; and (3) abolish above-inflation rent increases on rent-controlled units and preserve affordable housing for current residents. Join us as we organize for rent control and fight for housing justice.

Stomp Out Slumlords

Email: tenants@mdcdsa.org

Website: http://stompoutslumlords.org/

Slack: #tenantsrights

Twitter: @StompSlumlords

Tenants organizing tenants to make this city work for tenants. From our anti-eviction canvasses, to helping working-class Washingtonians organize in their buildings, to our coalition with the DC Tenants Union, we’re figuring out how to build tenant power to take on the landlord class. Join us.

Caucuses

Ecosocialist Caucus

Email: ecosocialism@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #ecosocialism

In a 21st century that is already being defined by intensifying ecological, economic, and political crises, any environmentalism without equitability won’t have the tools needed to win the consent and active participation of the masses, while any attempts at socialism that don’t deeply integrate ecology will be dead ends on a dying planet. Against the existential threat of climate change, it’s necessary to organize a global political mobilization that can overcome fossil fuel capitalists and resurgent fascists in order to rapidly decarbonize energy systems and withdraw massive amounts of CO2 emissions from the atmosphere. We must also fight for democratic use of the world’s resources and to reverse the damage that capitalism is inflicting upon the earth and the global community. Our task is to build collective power and solidarity with overlapping struggles — and all struggles overlap with climate & environmental justice — so we can all live in societies that allow people to truly thrive while regenerating our planet. Our primary goals are to promote ecosocialist perspectives and to encourage MDC DSA members to engage in meaningful organizing campaigns that advance climate and environmental justice in and around the District of Columbia, especially when we believe that they will build capacity within the chapter while growing power for working class people. (Read the full mission statement.)

Libertarian Socialist Caucus

Slack: #lsc

MDC LSC is a caucus of members of the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America, who believe that libertarian socialist values are the fullest embodiment of the democratic socialist vision. We cherish the MDC DSA’s status as a multi-tendency local mass socialist organization and wish to create a space within MDC DSA to discuss and organize for the development of socialism beyond the state. We take libertarian socialism to encompass those parts of the socialist movement (including syndicalists, council communists, anarchists, cooperativists, and municipalists, among many others) which have historically seen the surest path to socialism as residing in the creation of independent institutions in civil society that give the working class and ordinary people direct power over their lives. (Read the full mission statement.)

Queer Socialist Caucus

Email: queercomrades@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #queer-comrades

The Queer Socialist Caucus of Metro DC DSA is a multi-tendency caucus for LGBTQIA+ socialists and our allies who work to smash the cis-normative heterosexist patriarchal capitalist cis-tem. We are Queer Intersectional Socialist Transfeminists. We provide a space within our chapter to escape for a time the dominant narrative that often keeps us hyper-vigilant with our monthly Happy Hours. We sometimes schedule these with other groups both in and out of the chapter to build connections and facilitate organizing. We work with outside groups in coalition on various Intersectional issues affecting the working class.

SciFi Caucus

Slack: #scifi-caucus

The SciFi caucus serves as an intellectual and educational forum for discussing science fiction within the caucus or with the general body, and as a way to reach out to those who don’t yet identify as socialists but who might in the future. This caucus will also plan social activities related to science fiction.

Socialist Feminist Caucus

Points of contact: Kim L., Becca T., Cassandra C., Francesco R.

Email: socfem@mdcdsa.org with questions

Google group: socfem-all@mdcdsa.org to join

Slack: #socialist-feminist for discussion and events, #soc-fem-reading-group for reading lists and suggestions

Smashing heterosexist cisnormative patriarchal imperialist capitalism. We work to build a welcoming and inclusive community, create a culture shift within Metro DC DSA, provide each other mutual support, and hold space to relax and socialize apart from the demands of organizing. We facilitate the monthly Socialist Feminist Reading Group (open to all), host seasonal Grrrls* Nights events (for women, trans comrades of all genders, and femmes), and sponsor periodic chapter-wide norms-building and inclusivity trainings.

Socialist Heritage Caucus

Email: billmosley@comcast.net
Slack: #socialist_heritage
The mission of the Metro-DC DSA Socialist Heritage Caucus:
To explore the history of DSA both locally and nationally, as well as the history of left politics and culture locally, nationally and internationally, in order to provide a historic perspective that can contribute to the present-day thinking and practices of Metro-DC DSA;
To conduct occasional events to highlight DSA and left history and heritage, including but not limited to salons, forums, tours, films, readings and other educational and cultural events;
To organize periodic social gatherings of members of the caucus to share information and ideas.
Membership in the Socialist Heritage Caucus as well as all of its activities will be open to all DSA members in good standing.

Socialists of Faith Caucus

Email: faithcaucus@mdcdsa.org

Slack: #socialists-of-faith

Recognizing that radical faith traditions have been at the heart of many social movements. Also, recognizing that there are comrades within the chapters who are spiritual, or religious. An identity caucus whereby these comrades can interact, and pursue faith-based activism is to be established. We are aware of the critiques on religion by the secular left. We are open to be self-critical of our home traditions, and critical of the structures of oppression. The caucus wishes to build solidarity with comrades’ faith traditions and the broader left, as well as combat false representation of religion and ideology. (Read the full mission statement.)

Socialist Writers Caucus

Slack: #soc-writers-caucus

The Socialist Writers’ Caucus recognizes and honors the power of the written word to change the world. Writers and artists share and sharpen ideas, tell stories, inspire action, and bear witness to the human struggle for liberation. They literally help us come to terms with the world around us and understand where we were, where we are, and where we’re headed. The Socialist Writers’ Caucus seeks to create a space where writers in all genres can collaborate, critique, and mutually support one another in our work as we strive to define and enrich socialism for the twenty-first century. We also support Metro DC DSA in our capacity as writers and artists to foster internal communication and promote the chapter’s activities. (Read the full mission statement.)